The Haps As Of Late

When I was a pledge of Kappa Sigma back in the spring of '97, my fellow pledge brothers and I were encouraged to get interviews with the active guys in the house. This was little more than getting their basic info of hometown, pledge pin number, pledge class, birthdate, that sorta stuff. Often times, the active brother would give a quote. One of the most memorable I heard was (pardon my French here): Excuses are like assholes...everyone has one and they all stink.

Granted, this ain't exactly profound, but I've gotta say, it's made me own up to a lot more of my shortcomings rather than rattling off some lame excuse!

So, as not to give you said lame excuse, I'll share why you've seen very few EE posts over the last couple months. From the last post date and for the next six weeks, I have little excuse. I was traveling, I was busy, but more than anything, I just failed to get 'er done.

Then, from May 5 until today, my excuse is a lot more legit...

On May 5, I went in for surgery at Missouri Baptist Hospital in St. Louis, MO. Why, since I live in Florida, would I go back to my hometown of St. Louis for surgery? Simple: There will never, EVER be a plastic surgeon who will work on me from the neck up other than Dr. Timothy Jones. Dr. Jones did my first facial reconstruction nearly 17 years ago and every reconstructive operation on me since. And, he's in STL. Which means I'll travel so as to keep my favorite surgeon's results!

Upon Dr. Jones' reccomendation, I was also having some hernia repairs done by Dr. Omar Guerra. These two awesome docs tag teamed on yours truly for a mere 12 hour operation on May 5.

A few days post op, it was pretty obvious that something just wasn't right. After X rays and CT scans, we learned that due to a lengthy surgery and the shifting of some abdominal scar tissue, my bowels were obstructed. Another surgery(kinda emergency since it started close to midnight) and another week of hospitalization while my guts kicked back into gear.

Discharged from Mo Bap and came home to Orlando...where I failed to progress. After several days of hurting and digressing, we went to a nearby hospital where it was determined I had ANOTHER bowel obstruction; this one due to a raging infection at the incision site from the last obstruction repair. Another surgery, another week in the hospital and I came home, still on IV atibiotics b/c the infection was an antibiotic resistant bit of nastiness.

So, after roughly a month of hospitalization and some extra time with homebound recovery, I am just now getting back to normal. All docs have suggested I spend the next month or so laying kinda low, so even E mail for this summer may be sporadic. Still, I'll try to get some posts up now that I'm totally capable of getting back in the office.

Thanks for understanding why EE has been so inactive...I'll try not to continue this habit! Hey, no one wants to stink!